Breathe
by TheNobodyofaSOLDIER
Summary: [Eld x Sick!Pregnant!Reader]


You stared back at the Commander, unable to fully process the words he just uttered. His eyes were dark, hollow. Blood crusted his brow and his jaw, while his normally clean, kept hair was a little messy. His proud stance curved over slightly, as if carrying a heavy load. You knew the mission failed. Everything about the commander said nothing else. But, you didn't want to believe it. No, you couldn't believe it: the idea was too impossible to wrap your mind around:

"I'm sorry, [Name.] The Special Operations Squad, Petra Ral, Oluo Bozado, Eld Jinn and Gunther Schultz were all killed by the Female Titan, were killed in action today."

You silently sat in your room, sinking into the softness of your bed. The warmth of the sun, though concealed some by the line of the horizon, lightly touched your cheeks with its soft, golden fingertips. You watched the birds twitter by, returning to their nests in the safety of the tree branches surrounding them. The wind swayed them gently along with the grass now orange from the hue of the sunset. You swallowed hard and felt the pain from Erwin's message stem from your heart, throughout your chest, across your arms, down to your fingertips. This spur then edged away into a dreadful numbness, a heavy paralysis that accompanied the disbelief and shock. Your breath strangled in your through as your temporarily lost the ability to even breathe.

Eld Jinn? Gone? All of his friends and companions? All those faces you knew so well, their dreams and aspirations, their distinctive personalities. Gone in less than a second. No time to adjust. No goodbyes. Nothing.

Your mind especially honed in on Eld, your closest friend and moreover, your lover. You and Eld began your training at the same time. You shared similar goals and dreams. You practiced your hand to hand combat skills with each another. During meals, you always sat together. At night, if insomnia took a hold of you, you both found each other, sharing stories, dreams, nightmares. Over time, your friendship grew deeper: on the training grounds, he fought with you and roughed you up as he would one of the male cadets, respecting your abilities and talents. In more personal situations, he treated you so gently, lovingly, passionately. He accepted everything about you, including your weak heart that you utterly despised. He always knew how to conform to your needs as you so needed them.

A guttural sound threatened to escape the depths of your throat as your memories flowed through. Your affair with him, though secret, possessed no peculiar thrill. You simply loved him, and he loved you. You found comfort in his arms, pleasure in his kisses, security waking up in his arms every morning. All that warmth, all that love was taken away from you.

Only one thing of his remained behind, one reminder of his existence, and it grew inside you, a new life.

Slowly, you sunk into your bed, your lungs tightening, your pulse pounding your ears. Slowly, your hand circled the bump forming in your abdomen. They were faint but you could feel the soft movements of Eld's child, the one he would never see. Nausea gripped you, but you consumed nothing that day, only the cold air of your room. But, your eyes were too dry to cry anymore.

You closed your eyes and dreamed. You dreamed of Eld, your child, a faceless angel at the moment. You perceived his smiling face as he held the child in his arms, loving beaming from him; tinkling, innocent laughter, sweet kisses, the form of your lover, pressing you close to his side.

Your heart raced faster. Chilled sweat misted your brow, and the frozen fingers of anxiety gripped your limbs. You felt constricted. You were smashed into the ground, defenseless, unable to move.

Then, you inhaled. Slow, deep, every tiny muscle in your lungs expanding, your ribs stretching accordingly. At once, your heart seized hold of this energy and spread it through your wanting body. With a loud gulp, you gasped again desperately.

For a moment there, you forgot how to breathe.


End file.
